Open Primaries

Saturday, March 12, 2011

New York Libertarians Sue Board of Elections for Invalidating Votes

New York state traded in those clunky old lever machines for state-of-the-art scanners last November. One little problem -- if a voter inadvertently marked the ballot in 2 places for one candidate running on 2 different party lines (eg. Cuomo for Gov as Dem AND as Independence), the vote automatically goes to the major party. Minor parties such as IP and Libertarian need votes for ballot status. NY has fusion voting.

Warren Redlich, the Libertarian Party's candidate for Governor of New York in the 2010 election, today filed a lawsuit in Albany County Supreme Court against the New York State Board of Elections, directing the state agency to cease ignoring votes cast for the Libertarian Party.... Redlich asserts that the Board of Elections' method of counting votes in New York ignores votes made for third party candidates by forcing multiple third party candidates onto the same ballot line, confusing the voters' choice of candidate and illegally invalidating votes cast for the Libertarian Party.